Tag Archive for 'eland'

What’s on Sable’s Mind?: Video


You might be thinking to yourself, ”who held a council meeting and decided that the bovids get all the attention of late?” Could it be that antelope everywhere complained for the lack of wildcasting and who’s sponsoring this campaign, if it can be called that? Or even more outrageous, ”was I held at horn point by a rebel bachelor herd to swing the camera in their direction? If by some small chance you were thinking along those lines, you’d be wrong!

Zebra Dust Bath

The real reason is that they are actually doing something other than grazing for a change. I even caught a herd of Eland on the airstrip horning each other just for sport, they are normally such shy animals, but this herd has been around Banyini since the grass dried up and seem to be used to the vehicles.

Eland, Malilangwe

This is what happens when my wife is away, I speak and write nonsense. So, moving swiftly on, I headed for Hlamba Mlonga to catch the sunrise with baboons on the hill, but no baboons, so I weaved my way through the Mopani woodlands on route to the Chiredzi instead.

Sunrise Portrait

I spotted some strange movement in the water, which were the spawn of some sort of fish I must still look into. Kim was over on the Hippo side, I took a drive through hoping to catch a glimpse of the dogs, but the signal was bouncing around off the sides of the cliff, as it turned out, they were all the way on the western side of the reserve again.

Schools Out

I ended up identifying trees, I’m trying to bring myself up to scratch on my tree knowledge, but it is so difficult when you’re out on your own each day. I normally take a clipping to my friend Bruce, who I call wikiB, then he raps off a name from memory each time – I’ll keep trying. I have to fill you in on how the hyena cubs are getting on, but I think I will save that for tomorrow.

Tyre Titbit

Lion kill, Croc and Elephant: Video


I started my day again with the normal ritual. Another puncture!
Luckily the dogs were still chilling out when I got there later than usual. They had no plans on moving for a while, all looking really well fed. They must have killed twice last night, and so there was no need, no urge to go hunting.
They sauntered off east a while later before resting up in the main road for some time. Then continued on east resting up near a small pan.
Road dogs
Dogs done, we headed north to Chiloveka dam. Arriving there we saw huge croc swimming across the dam. Thinking nothing of it we continued. On the northern bank we suddenly realised what was happening. Lions had killed and were feeding on a young zebra on the shores of the dam and the croc was heading that way.
Dam kill
Alas he didn’t have it in him to chase the lions off and lurked nearby all the while, while the lions finished off the kill. These 5 lions are the youngsters that broke away from the Nduna pride with Manyari.
The lions went to drink at the dam after feeding but were not happy with that big croc lurking and hissed their displeasures at it before resting in the shade.
At the same time lone elephant bull arrived on the far side of the dam to drink and bathe.
It sure was all happening in this one small spot.
Of course I was hoping for full on action, wanting the croc to challenge the lions and then the elephant breaking up the whole party. Nobody’s been reading the script again!
Back with the dogs, they were back to their normal afternoon routine. 5pm – greeting ceremony. 6pm – head off hunting.
Wake up call
Heading east they were soon along the fenceline that forms the border with Gona-Re-Zhou National Park. I always get nervous seeing them along any fence, just not wanting them to move out. The pups were curious with fence but thankfully Puzzles soon moved them away, when suddenly the chase was on. We of course couldn’t keep up but eventually did find the pack on the remains of an eland calf. It would appear that the pups had killed it. It was still small, and had probably been stashed in the long grass by its mother when the dogs surprised it.
Dreaded fence
Puzzles wasn’t at the kill but arrived some time later with bloodstains on her face. She didn’t feed, but once the eland carcass was finished she led the pack north to her kill.
Another good evening’s hunting for the pack.

Elephant bulls dominate: Video

Things aren’t looking great for the dogs.

Elegant sable
Temperatures are soaring again but at dusk there were some good big clouds on the horizon. No storm tonight but it looks like we’re building for one. (So if you don’t hear from me in the next day or so it could be that our system has been struck by lightening. These things do happen. But I’ll be back in a hurry)
I don’t know if it’s the temperatures or what is keeping the dogs in their rather inactive state.

Floppy and the team
They moved east quite some distance and again following the fence line. At one stage I saw impala ahead and wisely they took off not giving any alarm calls. The dogs never saw them, but a little further on they harassed a herd of eland. The eland weren’t too perturbed but the dogs were twittering excitedly hoping to find a weak victim. Alas the weren’t in luck and the only kill this morning was a baby impala killed by One-eye.
As they have been doing regularly, they rested up at a pan for the day. They love lying in the cool wet soil on the periphery and of course there’s water on tap.

What was that?
I don’t think they do this hoping for any prey to arrive. It’s just not their style. I think the only predators that wait at waterholes for prey are lions.

Sleeping reflections
In the afternoon they headed north, got to the fence and then stood there for ages contemplating whether to go east or west. Eventually the alpha female took the lead and they headed east. Again only one baby impala for the pack, was killed by the alpha female. With all these little kills, not even enough for one adult, the pack are really looking lean.

Fence hunt
Leaving the dogs at the pan I picked up Mandlovu and the herd near Chimbiya spring and heading that way. I left them and raced round, ran into the hills wanting to get to the spring and set up close in the rocks before they got there. Well I did get there before them ‘cos they never turned up. But already at the water was another herd of elephants. This made approaching difficult as I didn’t want them to be aware of me as this would spook them. I slowly wedged my way between rocks, moving only when they were making noise splashing around and eventually found myself about 5m from them. And there I sat and filmed for about 2 hours. Sitting safely with these huge beasts so close and watching them ago about life normally is such an honour. It put me on a high for the rest of the day.

Big Floppy and eagle

Action at Bandama: Video

You can usually count on Bandama waterhole (:map:) as a hotbed of game activity.

Most animals usually stay downwind of the pan (on the Southern side) to avoid the unwanted attentions of the predators that may be lying in wait. The problem of course is that the Southern side is where the mus is thickest. Check out the clip to see how the warthgs, eland, zebra, etc deal with this muddy mess.

Another world
Chiloveka dam